Silver medallist Christian Sprenger is hoping his stunning swim in Sunday's 100m breaststroke final will convince selectors to include him in Australia's 4x100m medley relay team.

Sprenger took silver in 58.93 seconds, just 0.47 seconds behind South Africa's Cameron van der Burgh who smashed a world record in a superb gold-medal swim.

To earn his spot in the 4x100m relay team, Sprenger would have to displace Brenton Rickard, who finished sixth in the same race.

"I think I've done it, well put myself in a good position to be chosen anyway," Sprenger said.

"I went into that race thinking it was going to be my last race and I produced a good swim, and now moving towards that medley relay I'm very excited to potentially be in that final swim.

"I think it will be the first time on the international stage that I will potentially be chosen for that relay spot and I think now going in with this newfound confidence and obviously the new time that I posted I feel a lot better about myself."

Van der Burgh told reporters he was humbled to have been able to stand among men at the pinnacle of the event.

"I remember watching this race in 2004 on television and it gives me goosebumps to be here with these champions," he said.

"It's nice to join the club (of gold medallists).

"From a young age we, all the people sitting here, dreamed about becoming Olympic champions.

"I even had to delete Twitter from my phone because I was getting ahead of myself thinking about it."